


Watching the skies

by Unfeathered



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfeathered/pseuds/Unfeathered
Summary: Two men watch the skies, for different and similar reasons





	Watching the skies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the One-shot Challenge #69 // "Skies" at [Who-Contest](https://who-contest.dreamwidth.org)
> 
> Thank you to [Alexandria](/users/Alexandria/) for the beta!

Wilfred Mott had always watched the skies. Trained his telescope on the furthest star, and imagined visiting it, escaping his nagging family and his humdrum life. Searching for signs of life out there in the darkness, signs of something _more_.

Then the Doctor came, and everything changed. He took away Donna, but he gave them both hope. The little blue box Wilf saw tumbling away into the night was proof that there _was_ life out there – life and adventure and marvellous things. And Donna was going to see it.

* * *

Jack Harkness had always watched the skies. Growing up in the back of beyond, where there was little to look at _but_ sky, he turned his gaze upwards, dreaming of adventure.

Then the monsters came and everything changed. He watched the skies, then, for their return, angry and hurting, and resolved to get out there just as soon as he could and _find_ them. Find Gray.

* * *

Eventually, Wilf got Donna back, and everything was almost as it had been. Almost, except that _he_ knew what Donna was missing. He watched out for the Doctor then, hoping that one day the little blue box would come back, bringing the Doctor and hope that he could fix things, give Donna back what she'd lost, let her be as brilliant as she'd been when she was with him.

* * *

Cardiff didn't have so much sky, but there was the Bay, and there were rooftops. Rooftops where Jack would stand, for hours, gazing out over his city, and gazing up into the endless void above him. Looking for a little blue box that would come and rescue him from his eternity of waiting, take him back to adventure out amongst the stars.

* * *

Everything looked a little different to Wilf after he'd been in space, gazed down on the Earth from above, seen it as one whole planet, a brilliant blue sphere shining out amongst the more distant stars. A little easier, then, to accept what he'd got – his wonderful granddaughter, his annoying but mostly well-meaning daughter, his little group of friends.

* * *

The 456 came, in a beam of fire from the sky, and took from Jack first Ianto and then Steven and, to all intents and purposes, Alice. He saved the world, but the personal cost was too much to bear.

He stands on a hill outside Cardiff, the night sky wide and dark and beckoning to him. Waiting for Gwen to bring him his wrist strap and, with it, hope. The ability to escape again at last, fly away to adventure and excitement and _distraction_… and perhaps, eventually, acceptance.

* * *

Wilf still watches the skies. Sometimes there are odd things, things other people might explain away as secret military manoeuvres, or a trick of the light. Like a bright light over the Earth over to the west, over towards Wales, that he's pretty sure is a spaceship. It hovers for a while, twinkling, sometimes bright, sometimes winking out of sight. And then there's a brilliant _flash_ shooting up to it from the Earth. Someone transporting up to the ship, he thinks, another one zooming away to the rest of the universe.

He hopes they find what they're looking for.


End file.
